Pastor Kimon on Foolishness, Noah & Hollywood

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom didn’t know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21).

These words by the Apostle Paul always make me hopeful as a Pastor, even to the point of feeling good about my future and myself.

The word “foolishness” sums up my life before I was born again. On April 1, 1973, I was delivered of seven demons, after which the Spirit of God came into me and gave me His eternal life. It has been a wild 41 years in God – with both good and bad, happy and sad, life and death, doing things right and doing things wrong – and yet, God has been true to His word all the time.

In Hebrews 13:5, He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us, and in St. John 6:37, He promised us if we came to Him, he would in no way throw us away.

Through it all, I’ve been able to recover myself when needed because of scriptures like the few I’ve shared above. Oh, there are many more!—but, I’m not going to just write out half of the Bible in a blog. I’ve got to get back to the word “foolishness” in 1 Corinthians 1.

Defining Foolishness

“Foolishness” means silliness (i.e. absurdity). In the Greek, the word “foolishness” is “moreeah.” It comes from another Greek word “moros,” meaning dull or stupid (i.e. heedless, blockhead, absurd fool, foolish), which pretty much makes me look back at my life before April 1, 1973.

But, God chose to act in a foolish way of getting His message of good news out, how He brought His grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, favor, kindness and blessing to mankind by the birth, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus, who paid the price to bring us back to God with everlasting life. Think of it! God being able to take a mess of a life like mine and yours, and by changing us from the inside out, He is able to create a message of His salvation in and through us to take His good news (the Gospel) to others.

Hollywood Today

This line of thinking brings me to the movie Noah. In the last year and a half, there has been five movies or series about God that have been released on TV and in the theater:

Heaven is for Real, which is about a little boy who died and was revived

The mini series The Bible on the History Channel

God’s Not Dead, which is in the theater now

Son of God, which was in the theater recently

And, Noah, which is also in the theater now

And in 1956, we had The Ten Commandments. So, out of Hollywood, we have The Ten Commandments, The Passion of the Christ (this was a heart-wrenching one, in my opinion), The Bible series, Son of God and Noah – all Bible stories put out on film, and none of which were “right on” accurate, but each of them had some accurate truth in them.

Some inaccuracies in each one:

The Ten Commandments – in the movie, Moses had a white wife. She was not white in the Bible.

The Bible series – Abraham wasn’t begging Lot to stick with Him (he told him to leave); the angels that came for Lot down in Sodom were not beating down his door to escape from all the homosexuals; and, there wasn’t a Kung Fu angel in The Bible.

The Passion of the Christ – there’s a white python by Jesus’ feet in the garden, a baby-sized old man carried by Satan and demon little kids tormenting Judas to insanity—none of which is found in the Bible.

Noah – the film didn’t show Noah’s sons all having wives (they did before boarding the ark). The Noah of the Bible knew the ark was for his family and the animals, and he wasn’t ever thinking of killing any grandkids. And, The Rocks—they reminded me of Transformers—were a hoot, too.

All in all, we should know by now that Hollywood is not able to produce a movie from any record in the Bible without adding its own worldy wisdom.

So, why are so many Christians so bent out of shape over it? The films are produced and targeted for people looking to be entertained. They aren’t produced to bless the church with a Bible study.

Pat Robertson of the 700 Club didn’t make them. TBN or Daystar didn’t make them. Hollywood made them for the world to come see and spend money. They see that there’s a market in the industry for movies about God, so they make them.

At least when they do make a movie about God, they have to get the subject from the Bible, and to do that, there’s a certain amount of truth that has to come along with the crazy story lines they put in them. And, with that bit of truth, I know my God can get a seed of truth into a hungry, seeking soul.

Like the Apostle Paul, I’m glad that at least God is spoken of on screen. If Paul were here, he’d say the same. Check out his words in Philippians 1:15-19:

“Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”

I’ve got one more blog on this subject coming in a couple of weeks—after I go see another movie about God.

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